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HENNEPIN.

[Indian Way of Striking a Fire.]

573

death of their parents or friends they repair | mirers of themselves in this fantastical to the mouth of the cavern, to ascertain dress."-HENNEPIN, LOUIS, New Discovery, whether their souls have met with any im- &c. p. 76. pediment. If they think they have not distinguished the voice of the deceased, they withdraw overjoyed, and celebrate the event by inebriety and dances characteristic of their felicity; but if they imagine they have heard the voice of the defunct, they hasten to drown their grief in intoxicating liquors, in the midst of dances, adapted from their nature to paint their despair. So whatever may be the lot of the departed soul, his relations and friends give themselves up to the same excesses; there is no difference, but in the character of the dance."-DEPONS, F. Travels, &c.

[Painted Barbarians.]

"WHEN these barbarians go either to the wars or feasts, they besmear all their faces over, either with red or black, to the end they might not discover it, if they should grow pale with fear. They also colour their hair with red, and cut it in different shapes; but this is practised more especially among the savages of the North. Those of the South cut their hair quite off, or rather, burn it with stones heated red-hot in the fire; oftentimes the people of the North let their hair hang on one side, wreathed into a kind of bracelet, and cut it quite off on the other; but this is still according to every one's fancy.

"There are some of these savages that rub their hair all over with oil, and afterwards stick down or small feathers on their heads, also some of them will have great ones of several colours: but there are others that rather choose to wear crowns of flowers, which crowns another sort make of birchen-rind, or dressed-skins, all which, nevertheless, are most commonly very prettily contrived. Thus set forth, they appear, take them all together, just like several of Cæsar's soldiers, who were likewise painted with different colours. They are great ad

"THEIR way of making a fire, which is new and unknown to us, is this; they take a triangular piece of cedar-wood, of a foot and a half long, wherein they bore some holes half through; then they take a switch, or another small piece of hard wood, and with both their hands rub the strongest upon the weakest in the hole which is made in the cedar, and while they are thus rubbing they let fall a sort of dust or powder which turns into fire. This white dust they roll up in a pellet of herbs, dried in autumn, and rubbing them all together, and then blowing upon the dust that is in the pellet, the fire kindles in a moment."-Ibid. p.

103.

[Smell of Fire by the Indians.] "As soon as we had roasted or boiled our Indian corn, we were very careful to put out our fire; for in these countries they smell fire at two or three leagues distance, according to the wind. The savages take a particular notice of it. To discover where their enemies are, and endeavour to surprise them."-Ibid. 151. p.

[Great Feast of the Savages.]

"THE savages invited us to a great feast after their own fashion. There were above an hundred and twenty men at it naked. Ouasicoude, the first captain of the nation, and kinsman of the deceased, whose dead body I covered, when they brought him back to the village in a canoe, brought me some dried flesh and wild oats in a dish of bark, which he set before me upon a bull's hide, whitened and garnished with

1

574 MONARDES - NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW-JOHN WOOLMAN.

porcupine-skins on the one side, and curled wool on the other.

"After I had eat, this chief put the same robe on his head, and covered my face with it, saying with a loud voice before all that were present, He whose dead body thou didst cover, covers thine while alive. He has carried the tidings of it to the country of souls (for these people believe the transmigration of souls): what thou didst in respect of the dead is highly to be esteemed: all the nation applauds and thanks thee for it.'"-Ibid. p. 247.

[Black Earth of Peru, to make Ink with.]

THERE is a black earth in Peru of which "I can say," says MONARDES, "that they sent me a little that therewith I might make ink; which being cast into water or wine there is made thereof very good ink, wherewith one may write well, but it is somewhat blue, which maketh of it a better show."— ff. 102.

[Indian Tradition.]

"ACCORDING to the tradition of the Indians, when their ancestors first came from the West to this island, they found it occupied by Manshop, a benevolent but capricious being, of gigantic frame and super

a sort of grampus, whose descendants still delight to sport about the ancient dwelling of their great progenitor.

Saconet

"The giant then hurled his wife Saconet into the air, and plunging himself beneath the waves, disappeared for ever. fell on the promontory of Rhode Island, which now bears her name, and long lived there, exacting tribute from all passengers. At length she was converted into stone, still however retaining her former shape, till the white men, mistaking her probably for an idol, lopped off both her arms; but her mutilated form remains to this day on the spot where she fell, and affords lasting and unimpeachable evidence of the truth of the tradition."-North American Review, vol. 5, p. 318.

[Indian Histories painted on Trees.]

"NEAR Our hut on the sides of large trees peeled for that purpose, were various representations of men going to, and returning from the wars, and of some killed in battle, this being a path heretofore used by warriors. Those Indian histories were painted mostly in red, but some in black." -JOHN WOOLMAN's Journal, p. 134.

natural power. His daily food was broiled [Notions of the American Indians relative to

whales, and he threw many of them on the
coast, for the support of his Indian neigh-
bours. At last, weary of the world, he
sent his sons and daughter to play at ball,
and while they were engaged in their sport,
drew his toe across the beach on which they
were, and separated from the island. The
returning tide rising over it, the brothers
crowded round their sister, careless of their
own danger, and while sinking themselves,
were only anxious to keep her head above
the waves. Manshop commended their fra-
ternal affection, bade them always love and
protect their sister, and preserved their
lives by converting them into whale killers,

the Food they eat.]

"THEY abhor moles so exceedingly, that they will not allow their children even to touch them, for fear of hurting their eyesight; reckoning it contagious. They believe that nature is possessed of such a property as to transfuse into men and animals the qualities, either of the food they use, or of those objects that are presented to their senses; he who feeds on venison is, according to their physical system, swifter and more sagacious than the man who lives on the flesh of the bear, or helpless dunghill fowls, the slow-footed tame cattle, or the heavy wallowing swine. This is the reason

J. ADAIR — VASCONCELLOS-D. BERNARDO.

that several of their old men recommend, and say, that formerly their greatest chieftains observed a constant rule in their diet, and seldom ate of any animal of a gross quality, or heavy motion of body, fancying it conveyed a dulness through the whole system, and disabled them from exerting themselves with proper vigour in their martial, civil, and religious duties.

"I once asked the Archimagus, to sit down and partake of my dinner; but he excused himself, saying, he had in a few days some holy duty to perform, and if he eat evil or accursed food, it would spoil him, -alluding to swines' flesh. Though most of their virtue hath lately been corrupted, in this particular they still aflix vicious and contemptible ideas to the eating of swines' flesh, insomuch, that Shukapa, swineeater,' is the most opprobrious epithet they can use to brand us with: they commonly subjoin Akanggapa, 'eater of dunghill fowls."-J. ADAIR, History of the American Indians, p. 134.

[Indian Notion of the Joyful Fields.] VASCONCELLOS states it as the belief of the Brazilian tribes that the souls of women and warriors went to what they called the joyful fields, those of cowards to the Anhargus, to be by them tormented. Cowardice being the only vice, it seems then that women by reason of their sex, could have no sin imputed to them.-Vida de Alneida, vol. 1, p. 5, § 7.

[Sword of the Suyzaros-What?]

D. BERNARDO DE VARGAS MACHUCA, 1599, says that the sword then in use was

575

[Iron sold by the Spaniards to the Indians,

and used against them.]

BERNARDO DE VARGAS MACHUCA, who was settled at Santa Fe de Bogota complains that the Spaniards sold iron to the Indians, which thus got round to the warlike tribes, and was used to their own destruction, many lives having been lost in consequence. The traffic he says, is Cosa bien digna de castigo exemplar, que casi es traycion, o especie della.—Ibid. ff. 3.

[Santiago del Estero, or Mahomet's Paradise.]

SANTIAGO DEL ESTERO, by a play upon words which holds good only in Spanish, was called Mahomet's Paradise, the Mahoma women being favourites with the first ruffians who settled in that country. LoZANO says, "El partido de Venus estaba en especial tan valido y poderoso, que llamaban a esta ciudad el Paraiso de Mahoma; nombre infame, que manifiesta bien la dissolucion que reynaba."-Vol. 1, p. 3, § 17.

[Indian Stealth.]

"THEY sometimes scatter leaves, sand, or dust over the prints of their feet; somesometimes lift their feet so high, and tread times tread in each other's footsteps; and so lightly, as not to make any impression on the ground."-CARVER, p. 330.

[Indian Form of Submission.]

"THE Indians consider every conquered that which the Suyzaros invented. Does people as in a state of vassalage to their

he mean the Swiss, and did they introduce a shorter sword which caused the estoque to be disused? A natural consequence when the chivalrous mode of war was growing obsolete, and battles were decided by infantry.-Milicia Indiana, ff. 2.

conquerors.

subdued

"After one nation has finally another, and a conditional submission is agreed on, it is customary for the chiefs of the conquered when they sit in council with

their subduers, to wear

petticoats

as an ac

576 GUMILLA · TORQUEMADA-P. FRANCIS CHARLEVOIX.

knowledgment that they are in a state of subjection, and ought to be ranked among the women."-Ibid. p. 350.

with sighs, groans, tears, and loud lamentations."-Ibid. 1, c. 11.

[Care of the Achaquas for their Graves.]

"THE Achaquas of the Oronoco take especial care to beat down the earth upon a grave, and when the heat makes fissures in it, instantly to fill them up, lest the ants should get at the dead. Their worst imprecation is, May the ants soon fall upon thee."-GUMILLA, c. 14.

[Indian Kings-War-makers on their Accession.]

"Ir was the custom of these Indian kings, always to undertake some hostile expedition, immediately after their accession, against rebels, or enemies, or if they had neither to make new nations tributary."— TORQUEMADA, vol. 1, p. 195.

[Lamentation of the Othomacos over their Dead.]

“THE Othomacos of the Oronoco every morning at cockcrow bewail their dead,

[Iroquois Festival.]

"AMONG the Iroquois there was a particular kind of festival at which all the food was to be eaten."-CHARLEVOIX, P. FRANcis, t. 2, p. 85.

PHYSICA;

OR, REMARKABLE FACTS IN NATURAL HISTORY.

[Jay Feathers.] HE blue feathers of the jay's wing were at one time fashionable in France, and four thousand jays are said to have been stript to furnish trimming for a single dress.

[Albatrosses.]

"AN immense number of albatrosses were swimming like geese about the ship; as soon as a shot was fired they flew away. They seemed to raise themselves with difficulty from the water, and made a vast circle in it before they had wind enough to fill their long wings and begin their ascent."-LANGSDORFF, vol. 1, p. 83.

[The Albatross.]

commonly succeed to a violent gale of wind, will run to the water, endeavouring to escape they cannot fly; if pursued by land they them with the boidarkas, when they may be by swimming; but it is then easy to follow taken with the hand, or killed by a spear or the stroke of an oar.

"It seems easily to be comprehended, that such a bird, whose gigantic wings spread out to a breadth of ten or twelve feet, should not be able to fly in a dead calm."-Ibid. vol. 2, p. 105-6.

[Power of the Conger Eel.] THE power of these snakes in some may, degree, be estimated from a circumstance related of a conger eel, in the Star, for March 30, 1808. This eel, measuring six feet in length, and twenty-two inches in girth, and weighing three stone and a was taken in Yarmouth Wash.

half,

"THEY have very great strength in their Finding no large bills, and make a noise not unlike the way for escape, it rose erect, and knocked bleating of a goat or sheep. It is probably the fisherman down before he could take it. from hence that they are called by the French Moutons du Cap. In February one of them was brought to me upon which I could not discover the slightest wound. On enquiry how it was caught, I was answered, "THE ripe bread fruit will not keep good by the hand. Upon a farther investigation many days; in times of great abundance, tians unanimously, that in the calms, which a hole is made in the ground about eight into the matter, I was assured by the Aleu- therefore, it is cut into small pieces, when

[Bread Fruit.]

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